Count d’Esterházy (30 September 1831 – 3 October 1912, a.k.a. Janos Packh) is credited for founding the Hungarian Esterház Colony in Assiniboia District, NWT, Canada in 1886. In 1903, his name was given to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) siding three miles north of Kaposvar Church, the center of the Esterház Colony, that is known today as the town of Esterhazy, Saskatchewan.

He was a very charismatic person who had an aristocratic bearing, well educated, spoke several languages, a persuasive speaker, a proficient soldier and was considered a “Gentleman” in every respect. To many he was a philanthropist and saint however; to some, he was a villain and a cheat who falsely passed himself off as a member of the Hungarian aristocracy. He was married three times and fathered children from all three marriages.

Count Paul O. d’Esterházy, as he was known in his latter years, was born in Esztergom, Hungary and christened Joannem (Janos) Baptista Vincentium Franciscum Michaelem Packh in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Roman Catholic Church in Belvarosi, Esztergom. His parents were Janos Packh Sr. (1796-1839) and Maria Krotky. The Packhs had three children: Maria, Zsuzanna and Janos, who was the youngest. Janos Packh Sr., an Esztergom Basilica architect, was murdered when Janos Packh Jr. was eight years old.[i] His uncle, Rev. Fr. Jozsef Krotky, cared for him and gave him a good education.  At the outset of the 1848-49 Hungarian uprising against the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy, Packh enlisted with the 18th Patriotic Battalion of the Hungarian Honved Army just after his seventeenth birthday. Later, he was made lieutenant colonel and adjutant to Colonel Janos Korponay (1819-1881), leader of the Hungarian Militia. [ii]

With the assistance of the Russians, Austria defeated the Hungarians in August 1849 and Packh, along with the Hungarian Leader Louis Kossuth and an estimated 5,000 to 5,500 Honved officers and soldiers, fled the country and was given asylum within the Ottoman Empire. After two years, he was given asylum in England and lived in London where, on 4 May 1852 at the age of twenty-one, he married Catherine Emily Verran who was four or so years his senior. The marriage was a Church of England ceremony that took place at the church in the United Parishes of St. Andrews by the Wardrobe and St. Ann Blackfriars in the City of London.[iii]

In South Africa, India and Jamaica [iv]

In January 1856, Janos Packh, who was now using the surname name “de Packh”, signed on as a mercenary with the 3rd Regiment of the German Military Settlers of the British German Legion as a lieutenant adjutant and instructor of musketry. His regiment was sent to British Kaffraria in the   Cape Colony region of South Africa as military settlers to keep the peace and farm. On 23 October 1856, Janos de Packh, his wife Catherine and her nineteen year old sister Helen sailed from Portsmouth on the “Sultana” arriving in British Kaffraria on 16 January 1857 and settled in Stutterheim. A daughter, Maria (Minnie) Ann Catherine de Packh was born on 6 September 1858 and was baptized 6 October 1858 in Sutterheim’s St. Paul’s German Evangelist Lutheran Church.

An opportunity opened to British German Legion soldiers in South Africa to serve in the Indian Rebellion, also known as the Sepoy Rebellion, against British Rule in India. Captain de Packh joined the Jager Corps on 27 September 1858 and was commissioned as a Lieutenant and instructor of Musketry and arrived in Bombay (Mumbai), India 8 November 1858 just as the rebellion was ending. Captain de Packh returned to the Cape in late 1859 and joined the Grahamstown Volunteer Rifle Corps as an adjutant. In July 1860, he was appointed Acting Deputy Assistant Commissary General and was appointed first lieutenant and adjutant of the Grahamstown Volunteer Rifle Corps on 12 February 1861. In March 1863, the de Packhs returned to England. Their second child Brenda Helen Elizabeth de Packh was born on 6 December 1863 and christened on 25 December at the Wesleyan-Methodist Chapel, London.

On 15 January 1864, he was gazetted Paymaster of the 5th West India Regiment serving at Up Park Camp, Kingston, Jamaica.  Packh travelled to his post in Jamaica alone and his family remained in London.  However, by an Act of Parliament the 5th West India Regiment was disbanded and after serving 14 months, he departed Jamaica for England on 10 May 1865. On 20 October 1865, he was gazetted Captain Paymaster of the 3rd West India Regiment and returned to Up Park Camp, Kingston, Jamaica again leaving his family in London. Packh’s wife Catherine made a trip to Jamaica in the autumn of 1886 bringing their youngest child, St. John Baptiste de Packh, with her. Sadly, their son died 24 December 1866 at the age of 9 months.

For reasons that remain unclear, Captain de Packh, Paymaster of the 3rd W.I. Regiment, abruptly absconded from his duties on 26 December 1866 that led to his official dismissal from the British Army for absence without leave. He left Jamaica for continental Europe and it was later reported that Captain de Packh eloped and married Emilie Prenderville the 21 year old daughter of Major J. H. Prenderville who was also stationed at Up Park, Jamaica. His first wife Catherine had sailed to England from Jamaica but is said to have died in Hungary 10 November 1869 at the age of 42.

Return to Hungary [v]

In June 1867, Franz Joseph of the Austro-Hungarian Empire proclaimed a general amnesty making it possible for exiles of the 1848-49 Hungarian War of Independence to return to Hungary. In July 1887, de Packh and his new wife Emilie travelled to the Austrian Embassy in Munich, Bavaria where the Austrian Ambassador issued a travel document giving de Packh safe passage within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, the travel document was signed by de Packh not as Janos Baptiste de Packh, but as Grof (Count) Oscar Esterhazy. He used the Esterházy name for the remainder of his life and never used de Packh again. The circumstances of how de Packh was able to obtain an Austrian travel document in the name of Count Oscar Esterházy has never been fully explained. While in Hungary, the Government demanded an oath of allegiance to His Majesty the King (Emperor Franz Joseph) but Esterházy/de Packh declined and then made the decision to immigrate to the United States.

In The United States [vi]

Count Paul O. d’Esterházy, as he called himself in the United States, arrived in New York with his wife Emilie in January 1868. On 21 February 1868, Emilie gave birth to a son christened Paul Oscar d’Esterházy Jr. but Emilie died on the evening of Sunday 23 February. She was buried in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Woodside, Queens, New York. In 1871, Count d’Esterházy married Anna F. Brady who was from an Irish Catholic family. He was forty and she was twenty-one years old and they raised seven children into adulthood.

He obtained employment for two years with the United States Customs Service. Count d’Esterházy

never became a United States citizen and always considered himself a subject of Great Britain. From 1870 he was employed by the Continental Fire Insurance Company of New York and in 1879 he joined the Colorado Central Consolidated Mining Company as Secretary and a Director until 1885. From 1885, he was employed at various times by railway companies examining lands suitable for colonization and was also employed as a colonization agent in both the United States and Canada. He also founded and ran newspapers and did short term work including working for the Mutual Life Insurance Company and as special agent for the Highland Trust Company of New York. In 1904, he accepted a position with Messrs. R. Hoe and Company of New York who manufactured printing presses and held the position for the remainder of his life.

Throughout his life Count d’Esterházy also devoted time to philanthropy. Upon his arrival in the United States, he funded a school for the children of the grave diggers of Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Queens, New York. In 1882 he formed the “Hungarian-American Colonization Society” with the intention of settling Hungarians on land in the Tom’s River Valley, Virginia but the colony never materialized. However, the Society assisted immigrants from Hungary with temporary accommodation and some food when they first arrived at Castle Gardens in New York and found them employment. In a second colonization attempt to assist his Hungarian countrymen, he formed “The First Hungarian-American Colonization Company in 1884 to settle Hungarians on land in Ocean County, New Jersey but again, the project never materialized and he lost a considerable amount of money. A concern to Count d’Esterházy was that Hungarian immigrants were not attending church services because there were no services in Hungarian.  He worked with the non-denominational “Church of the Strangers” in New York and the “American Home Missionary Society” in Passaic, New Jersey and elsewhere to arrange for church services in Hungarian and teach English to factory workers.

For much of his life in the United States, d’Esterházy was in and out of financial and legal trouble. Two occasions earned him a reputation as a villain and a cheat that also led to his spending time in jail. In 1884, he kept the money that he was given by a fellow Hungarian to invest in Hungary although he said he was about to pay it back just as he was arrested. The second occasion was in 1898 when the Count secured loans for his newspaper business on the strength of undated cheques to be drawn on a bank in which he had no money on deposit. The Count’s explanation was that it was always understood that the cheques were not to be cashed until his paper became profitable at which time he would deposit the funds in his bank. Both times the sentence was lenient because of his previous philanthropy, and he was helped by friends and his daughter who paid for his bail and his debts.

Involvement with Western Canadian Immigration [vii]

Knowing of Count d’Esterházy’s involvement with immigration, CPR agents in the United States persuaded him to go to Ottawa. In Ottawa, he had talks with the Canadian Minister of Militia and Defense that was followed by a private meeting with the Governor-General of Canada. He then contacted Department of Agriculture officials in Ottawa and railway officials in Montreal. It was agreed that he travel to Manitoba and the North-West Territories to talk with local government and railway officials to identify a block of suitable farmland to establish agricultural colonies for Hungarian immigrants from Hungary and also Hungarians who had immigrated to the United States.

Count d’Esterházy and his associate G. S. de Dory visited Western Canada in early June 1885. They travelled by rail on the CPR to the village of Whitewood, Assiniboia District, NWT about 400 km west of Winnipeg. They hired two conventional horse drawn buggies and equipped themselves for several days of camping on the prairie. They selected a block of land within the CPR land grant that was 30 km northeast of Whitewood on the north bank of the Qu’Appelle Valley. A second block of land was chosen within the Manitoba and North Western Railway (M&NW) land grant just north-east of the first selected site; however, the site was later changed for a block of land on Little Stony Creek 30 km northeast of present day Minnedosa, MB that was located on the M&NW railway line.

In mid-summer 1885, G. S. de Dory and 16 other colonists, made up of Hungarians, Slovaks and Poles, all originally from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, took up homesteading northeast of Minnedosa that would come to be known as Huns Valley.  After de Dory’s death in 1895, over time the Polish immigrants began to outnumber the Hungarians and Slovaks and Huns Valley was renamed Polonia in 1921.

In early 1886, Count d’Esterházy and his associate Julius Vass brought out 44 settlers to the CPR land grant block northeast of Whitewood on the northern bank of the Qu’Appelle Valley that would become known as the Esterház Colony. All 44 Colony settlers were born in countries or regions that made up the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Of the 44, four families were originally from the Bohemia Lands and the remaining 40 settlers, made up of Hungarians and Slovaks, were from Greater Hungary who had first immigrated to the United States. From 1886 to the end of 1890, ninety-four settlers either took out a homestead or purchased land in the Esterház Colony. During this period, 26 settlers abandoned the colony leaving a total of 68 Esterház Colony settlers at the end of 1890. By 1900, there were 108 Esterház Colony settlers.

In 1902, the Canadian Government commissioned d’Esterházy to write an immigration pamphlet based on the success of the Esterház Colony. This was the last time he  visited the Esterház Colony that had by then become known as the Kaposvar District. The Esterhazy Immigration Pamphlet was distributed throughout the United States and Hungary. His last immigration work in Canada was with the CPR as an immigrant agent for one year that ended in January 1904.

Packh or d’Esterházy [viii]

Count P. O. d’Esterházy (a.k.a. Janos Baptiste Packh) died in New York on 3 October 1912 at the age of 81. He is buried along with members of his family in Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Woodside, Queens, New York. He wrote that he had “incontrovertible proofs” of the legality of his claim and had the right to be called Paul O. d’Esterházy. However, documents substantiating his claim were never presented by Count Paul O. d’Esterházy or found by his son, Paul d’Esterházy Jr., despite an exhaustive search. He never actually named who his Esterhazy father was in any of his surviving correspondence or to his son. His family in Hungary and the Hungarian Esterházy family also denied his claim.

Sources:

Dojcsak, Gyozo. “The Mysterious Count Esterhazy.” Saskatchewan History, vol. 26, no. 2, 1973, pp. 63–72.

Egerton, Arthur, DSO. “The British German Legion, 1855-1856.” Royal United Services Institution Journal, Vol. 66, 1921, pp. 469-476.

Esterhazy Papers. Letters, photographs and memorabilia of Count Paul O. d’Esterhazy along with letters and writings of Paul d’Esterhazy, Count Paul O. d’Esterhazy’s son. The collection was given to Martin Louis Kovacs by Count Paul d’Esterhazy’s grandson Paul d’Esterhazy. The collection is now in the Martin Kovacs Collection: Dr. John Archer Library, University of Regina Archives and Special Collections, Regina.

Kovacs, Martin L. Esterhazy and Early Hungarian Immigration to Canada: A Study Based Upon the Esterhazy Immigration Pamphlet. Canadian Plains Studies, Canadian Plains Research Centre, University of Regina, Regina, SK, 1974.

Nagy, Joseph G. Count d’Esterhazy and the Esterhaz-Kaposvar Hungarian Colony in Western Canada. FriesenPress, 2024. ISBN: 978-1-03-831508-3

Poltl, Zoltan. “Tragédia a Bazilika árnyékában” (“Tragedy in the Shadow of the Basilica”). 2007. http://oldhidlap.hu/news/view/1635/. Accessed 30 March 2023.

Sessional Papers of the Dominion of Canada, 1885 - 1894. Reports and papers tabled in the House of Commons, Parliament of Canada, Ottawa, ON.

Smith, William. Along the Hills to the Valley: Huns Valley – Polonia District 1885-1995. Polonia Centennial Committee, Polonia, Manitoba, 1983.

Tyler, W. B. “The British German Legion 1854-62.” Journal of Society for Army Historical Research, Spring, Vol. 54, no 217, 1976, pp. 14-29.

Westphal, William. Ten Years in South Africa: Only Complete and Authentic History of The British German Legion in South Africa and the East Indies.  Franklin Classics Trade Press, 1892. ISBN 9780343664183.

[i] Poltl, Zoltan. 2007. http://oldhidlap.hu/news/view/1635/. Accessed 30 March 2023. 

[ii] Nagy, Joseph G. 2024

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Dojcsak, Gyozo, 1973; Egerton, Arthur, 1921; Tyler, W. B., 1976; Nagy, Joseph G., 2024; Westphal, William, 1892

[v] Dojcsak, Gyozo, 1973; Nagy, Joseph G., 2024

[vi] Dojcsak, Gyozo, 1973; Kovacs, Martin L., 1974; Nagy, Joseph G., 2024

[vii] Esterhazy Papers; Kovacs, Martin L., 1974; Nagy, Joseph G., 2024; Sessional Papers of the Dominion of Canada, 1885 - 1894.

[viii] Dojcsak, Gyozo, 1973; Nagy, Joseph G., 2024 Esterhazy Papers, 1906 Count d’Esterhazy letter

to Maurice de Bunsen.

References

Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Count_Paul_O._d%27Esterh%C3%A1zy
No tags for this post.